Posted in: Comics, Current News | Tagged: Jarred Luján, Long Read, scout comics

Comic Creators And Their Problems With Scout Comics: The Long Read

Last week, comic book creator Jarred Luján sparked a wide-ranging discussion among creators about publisher Scout Comics.

For the last few months, I have been hearing comic book creators' dissatisfaction with a number of comic book publishers, but few are willing to give specifics. Scout has been mentioned a number of times, and I had been taking notes. But last week, comic creator Jarred Luján put his head over the parapet. He wrote the one-shot comic All The Devils From Here,  published by Scout Comics last April.

All The Devils From Here

Jarred Luján posted to TwitterX, "If you're a new creator, please avoid Scout Comics like the plague. Haven't paid me for a book out over a year. Won't answer emails. We delivered a completed, profitable book and still got screwed. Spoke to the Editorial Director and he implied we'd be blacklisted for complaining. CEO came in acting like he'd help, and now he's ghosting us too. If it's like that at the top, you know why everything else sucks. I've tried for a year to work with these people, and it's clear they have no intention of working with us. Nothing resembling a partnership. I also got a single statement about book sales and not a single one since. Can't promote books, can't pay creators, but they got a full @Whatnot schedule! My last email a month ago was, "Hey, can you just cancel our contract, and we can move past the money you owe me?" and they still didn't answer. That would have cost zero dollars, for whatever that's worth."

Now, Scout Comics is a smaller comic book publisher distributed through Diamond and Lunar, founded in 2015 and has published over 300 titles, has lots of multi-media TV and movie options to announce, and is known for its digital, publishing and other collectable innovation aspects for comic books. So they have lots of creators on their books, who started to share their grievances. It probably couldn't have come at a worse time for Scout Comics, who today announced new funding and a relaunch this summer.

A number, but not all, of these issues are disputed by Scout Comics and are addressed below in the Scout Comics Responds To Bleeding Cool section below. But specifically regarding Jarred's claims above, Scout Comics states that All the Devils Are Here "was released in April 2023, refuting that it has been over a year since Mr. Lujan has not been paid". Additionally, they indicate that they sought to pay Jarred in August 2023, and have yet to receive his banking information to do so. I spoke to him about this last week, but since then, Jarred has said that he is no longer responding to press inquiries.

Comic Creators And Their Problems With Scout Comics

But after his initial post, lots of other comics creators started to get in touch. And I got in touch with Scout Comics. CEO Brendan Deneen who told me, initially regarding Jarred, "I reached out to him today and we plan to continue our attempts to rectify the situation fairly and civilly." Seconds after that Jarred told me that Deneen had indeed got in touch. Jarred later wrote, "Scout is drafting a termination agreement for us and claims to intend to pay us, though I will hold my breath until the money deposits and the paperwork is signed."

And other comic book creators were sharing their own stories, publicly and privately. There was a common thread of comic books being completed but not published, editors and publishers not replying to enquiries, statements not being issued, and questions about sales and royalties being ignored. Also, editors just disappearing, something I discovered when researching this story, emailing Scout Comics staffers to find one left and their e-mail was bouncing. But none of their creators seemed to know that they had left.

One big issue, it seems, is that people think of Scout Comics as one publisher with a number of imprints, like DC Comics, which to be fair, is how they present themselves. But actually, they are a series of publishers under one name, like Image Comics. So the likes of Black Caravan, Scoot, Chispa, Europe, etc are more like Top Cow, Wildstorm, Extreme, and Skybound under Image Comics. And that is why the Black Caravan imprint, created by Joseph Schmalke and Rich Woodall, is no longer publishing books through Scout Comics. And why my emails to Don Handfield, brought in as Partner and Co-Owner to Scout Comics in 2020, to launch some of those imprints, were suddenly bouncing.

We'll get those other creator accounts in a minute, but Scout Comics released the following statement, sent to me by James Haick, President of Scout, but also posted on social media with comments turned off.

Dear Comics Community,
Scout started as and remains a company created by and for creators. We love comics. We love reading comics, making comics, and publishing comics for other creators. We love the comics community.

While Scout has always strived to maintain high levels of service to our teams, recently a creative team expressed their frustration publicly due to having not had a response to their concerns in several months. This is true. We dropped the ball by failing to respond in a timely manner. We take full responsibility for our lack of response at that time due to internal miscommunication.

Regardless, we will continue to strive to do better and improve communication with all of our creators. Despite the complaints we have seen online, Scout has had very few creators reach out to us directly with concerns. We have actually had several creators reach out in support, which we appreciate.

As with all businesses, there will be missteps. The most important thing is to learn. At this time, we are openly welcoming any creator with a title at Scout Comics to reach out to our COO Lesa Miller at lesa.miller@scoutcomics.com with any concerns they may have. All concerns will be listened to and all inquiries will be responded to in a timely manner.

As creators ourselves, we understand the issues that have been presented to us. Thank you for your patience and grace while we endeavor to learn from the feedback we are receiving.

Before that, lots of Scout Comics creators had been talking, and I took their concerns to Scout Comics. Lesa Miller issued Bleeding Cool the following statement, which tackled more of the issues mentioned below. Highlights in bold are mine.

Scout Comics Responds To Bleeding Cool

"First, and most importantly, Scout Comics would like to take full responsibility and apologize for any lapses in communication with our creators. We do our best to get back to everyone as quickly and as thoroughly as possible, but it is an area that we are actively improving. We are a small company with a small staff, but communication is the lifeblood of any organization, and we recognize that we have work to do here — work that we are doing.

"To that end, we are in the process of reaching out to every active creator and discussing our vision and plan for their title, along with any outstanding issues/problems and ways forward. Most creators have been very receptive to our plans, and some of those creators have also asked for better overall communication, which we understand — and we appreciate the constructive criticism. Second, and also important, there are two major aspects of the negative online posts that are false. Those are regarding non-payment and threats.

"Regarding the first allegation, having added multiple revenue streams, generating royalty statements takes longer than it used to. Distributors also don't always remit payments in a timely manner, making it impossible at times to provide meaningful statements as quickly as we would like. We strive to create statements and pay creators as soon as possible once revenue is received and have sent royalty statements to all creators, and sent money when it was due, based on the royalty rates agreed to in our contracts. I'd like to point out that every single Scout Board Member is also a Scout creator, and we have signed the EXACT SAME contract as all of our other creators. I'd also like to point out that most of the Scout Board team (including myself, Brendan Deneen, and James Haick) have not taken a SINGLE PENNY in salary since the company launched in 2015. 

"Regarding the second allegation, we would never, EVER threaten ANYONE. It's a shocking allegation and 100% false. Regarding marketing efforts, within the past few months, and in an ongoing manner, James Haick has reached out to most of our creators with a specific marketing plan, suggesting a number of out-of-the-box concepts to generate sales. I will forward an example of one of these letters for your review. As most people know, 2023 was a challenging year for the comic book industry, so we did our best to be innovative. It's surprising to see criticism of our Pressworks program, a brand new collectible that no comic company has done before, especially since that specific item put a number of our books into the black. We believe in and promote all of our books, not just because it is mutually beneficial, but because we believe in them.

"Regarding our involvement in film/TV rights, our CEO Brendan Deneen has been selling literary IP into Hollywood for fifteen years, and before that was a movie studio executive. Unlike other comic book companies, we don't have a film agent. Brendan sells this material into Hollywood himself, and we have sold Scout comics to Amazon Studios, Disney, Warner TV, FilmNation, State Street, and Rooster Teeth, among many others. (This includes a Phillip Kennedy Johnson Scout book that is in active development with the one of the showrunners of DAREDEVIL.) I would like to point out that Scout does not own ANY of our creators' IP. Even if we bring an offer to them, they can say no. These are creator-owned books. 

"But film/TV has NEVER been our primary goal. Every single Scout exec LOVES comic books. When we get in submissions, our first question is always: Is this a great comic book in and of itself? Our second question is: Would this make a great TV show or movie? But we never get to the second question if the first answer isn't, "Yes." We have published Ringo Award-winning comics and several of our books have been selected by the National Library Association. We are very proud of and humbled by those recognitions.

"Since this situation broke last week, we have heard from a significant number of Scout creators who have told us that they support us and that they appreciate everything we've done and continue to do for them. Those messages are very, very meaningful to us during a difficult time. Finally, as we have said repeatedly since last week, we actively encourage any and all Scout creators to reach out to us via email and ask questions or raise concerns. We are committed to making our creators feel comfortable about their future with Scout."

I have also been provided evidence of extensive marketing plans shared with creators, specifically A Haunting Of Mars, which doesn't counter all of the claims regarding the publishing of that comic, but does show that, botched or otherwise, a press release was far from the "only 'marketing' they do for the book". Here are the concerns that have been posted publicly or raised with Bleeding Cool by comic book creators, which Scout was replying to.

Death Comes for the Toymaker

Dakota Brown of Death Comes For The Toymaker at Scout Comics wrote "I have not seen a dime off of Death Comes for the Toymaker. According to my contract, I am to start making royalties after production costs have been met, which hasn't happened yet. On my end, this is why I haven't seen any royalties. That isn't to say that there haven't been unfortunate decisions that led to this. Over ordering stock with additional covers and versions of issue one I was not made aware of made it very improbable that production costs would be met. Of course, a big issue is also what happens with the additional stock after the original order is made for comic stores. I don't know many readers who go to a comic publisher websites to order comics and subscription boxes can only do so much. Yes, there have been some wild miscommunications and long periods of time without answers. I don't know what the fix is, but I hope to work with the publisher to find it. With the trade of Death Comes for the Toymaker already finished with pre-orders, I have to stick it through. I completely understand everyone's frustrations and support anyone's decision to get out of their contracts and move on. I just hope that readers understand that some of us do not have that option. And I hope Death Comes for the Toymaker continues to find its audience.

Sh-tshow

Adam Barnhardt of Sh-tshow at Scout Comics added "I'll double down on the idea that transparency is non-existent and there's little to no structure or communication. Person A tells you to contact Person B, who tells you to contact Person C, who won't respond to emails or messages. For the record, I don't believe I'm owed any money—because that's what the statements I have received tell me. But that has been a chore in and of itself. Though both my deals say royalty statements are to be sent semi-annually, I didn't receive a single one in 2023. In fact, since the first deal was signed in 2019, I've only received three rounds of royalty statements, with two of the three only coming after months of consistent inquiring. Then there were some question marks—printings of new editions that pushed the account into the red. New editions or packagings that weren't sent to me—the sole copyright holder—for approval. Editions that weren't marketed in the slightest. I didn't know they even existed or were available for purchase until I got the royalty statements. It's extremely evident that signing titles with potential for film and television is the primary focus of the company—the one with Comics in its name." As to what would make it right, he told Bleeding Cool. "I just want the contracts canceled and the rights back—both for comics and film/TV."

Cult Of Ikarus

Karl Slominski of Cult Of Ikarus told me"I am currently awaiting termination paperwork from them regarding my next ogn. Once that's signed, I'll be as candid as possible." But until then, he was pretty candid, telling us about

• "CONSTANT delays. Our book had a STUNNING debut (we were told, one of the highest for the company) and issue one SOLD OUT- however, we were NEVER TOLD until visiting our LCS and the owner came out to congratulate us based on the Diamond site. (it had also sold out via Lunar, apparently- not like anyone would inform us). The decision came down (roughly a month later) to go to second print- printing costs that came out of OUR PROFITS.
• "NOBODY. ANSWERED. EMAILS. After the departure of Charlie Stickney (literally, the only person at the company that "cared" about indie creator relations), it took weeks. MONTHS. To get a response from anyone outside of our editorial- which, while considerate, had ZERO editorial experience. This included questioning my writer's (a Hollywood screenwriter) pacing. This level of condescending behavior permeated Scout's "editorial" through our tenure.
• "Issue one was late. Issue 2 was 4 months late. Issues 3 & 4 came out the same week. Nuff said.
• "Our trade was backpedaled/cancelled due to "low preorders" despite other titles that faired less than ours were fast-tracked to capitalize on momentum.
• "PAYMENT structuring was changed, despite specific wording in our contracts that we'd receive updates semi-annually, they sent them annually. And months late. I didn't attend Harvard, but an oversight such as this CLEARLY puts them in breach of contract for… i dunno, ALL of their books if these practices are carried across the board.
• "Their "PRESSWORKS" collection on their webstore (https://www.scoutcomics.com/collections/scout-pressworks) once described by their higher ups as "raiding the trash" is literally framed CMYK print plates of pages of art from select Scout titles. Cutting into the original art market that freelance illustrators make a third of their profits from. I literally saw someone buy a presswork page of my original art for 3x what they could've gotten the original ink on paper for. F-ck, if I only had a frame and some hack logo to slap on my originals.
• "Based on the faith instilled by their FORMER heads of operation (this company has had more turnaround than I've EVER seen in my 20 years in indie comics and that's only in 5 years), I signed a deal with them to publish my modestly-funded all ages OGN. As b&w manga-style book, it was met with disapproval, pleas for a "colored version" (out of my pocket? in COMICS?), and inevitably sitting on the book for over 4 years after signing said contract. While I was assured by the CEO that publishing delays do happen– oh, wait, have we mentioned that the ceo writes kids comics for MARVEL?!
• "While we should acknowledge the company started out with the best intentions, they've rapidly devolved to being a product of the disposable cynicism generated by a post-film-to-comics machine. They treat the books they pick up as SPRAY AND PRAY IP, hoping to sell the material for film/tv while not giving the proper attention to the source material they help produce. There are DOZENS of creators effected by this."

Provenance Of Madness

Kiyarn Taghan of Provenance Of Madness at Scout Comics gave me a longer response initially, as did his co-creator Christian DiBari of Provenance Of Madness, Rad Wraith and Electric Black. However after a back and forth, between the pair, and Scout Comics, Yaghan truncated it to the following; "We asked to be released from our contracts after multiple incidents that made it clear to us that Scout weren't going to push or promote our titles. They refused to terminate the contract unless we paid for all of our remaining stock which we were told would be somewhere between $32.5k to $75k when we said we would not buy our stock of them they would see the contract out. In the meantime they took our comics off the webstore and stopped taking our products to conventions. So they actively supressed our products in an incredibly petty way as though it would teach us a lesson."

Atlantis Wasn't Built for Tourists

Eric Palicki of Atlantis Wasn't Built for Tourists at Scout didn't make any specific comment. He just gave his full series away for free as a PDF, saying "Here is a complete graphic novel for you to read. Free. For reasons."

New Rat City

Honor Vincent of New Rat City from Scout told me "I signed on with Scout in August of 2021, with a publishing and multimedia agreement for New Rat City. Like other Scout creators I funded the book out of my own savings and crowdfunding. I was excited about the agreement at the outset: it was validating, and I was thrilled to have a publisher behind me to help market the book and get it into Previews. The latter happened, but not the former. I quickly found that communication was spotty and getting worse; release dates were never communicated to me, marketing plans were excitedly floated and then never happened, and my book was never on their table at cons. Issue #1 of my book sold almost 2,000 copies via Scout, with no promotion from their end and very little (because I didn't know it was being released until the day of the FOC!) on mine. My royalties from that and some reported WhatNot sales were about $80. At this stage, all I want (and what I want for other creators) are my rights to the book back – they aren't using them, and to tie them up without the ability to publish the book is terrible and demoralizing. I also want a better industry and better publishing agreements. Publishers are seen as validation by creators, especially newer ones, and they are also the easiest way to get wide distribution for your work through Lunar and Diamond. We've seen in multiple cases that they can – through incompetence or shadiness – take advantage of creators because of this. (And there are also wonderful publishers out there!). There's a fear of reprisal that comes into play too, which is awful: if you've had something like this happen I hope you aren't afraid to speak up. The one silver lining and wonderful thing about the present is that it's easier than ever to A. crowdfund a book and B. talk about issues like this openly."

A Haunting On Mars

Zach Chapman of A Haunting On Mars from Scout Comics gave me a lot, saying "A Haunting on Mars has been fully complete since this time last year. All five issues are fully drawn, colored and lettered. It's essentially been ready to print for over a year now. Scout offers no advances, and a 50/50% split (AFTER they make back their printrun). They also want a cut from any TV/Film option deals, something that an agent might get, despite NOT being an agent or TV/Film producer. So signing this document and agreeing to work with Scout was already probably a poor choice on my part. But the other publishers who were interested in A Haunting on Mars were smaller, and I wanted the largest distribution for my project."

"It starts with a botched press release (which is the only 'marketing' they do for the book). They just copy and pasted the entire synopsis from my pitch materials to create what they sent to the comics press sites. This includes major spoilers, character deaths and the details of the finale… in the press release for the series. I freaked out and asked them to have those taken down and they told me it would be fine, that spoilers only mattered for ongoing series like Batman and Superman. Not really knowing how to respond to that brick wall, I started contacting press sites myself with an updated press release and arc. I discovered a few things here: 1) something happened a year ago where they stopped sending many sites press releases (see Rik's email response to my press release back in September): "Zach I used to get weekly press releases from Scout. But that stopped a year ago RIK OFFENBERGER | Editor-in-Chief FIRST COMICS NEWS" And 2) they don't send out any arcs. Which doesn't instill any confidence in their books. I had to send out a ton of arcs to comics press myself to get any reviews."

"They asked me if I had any ideas about variants, that all issues needed variant covers. So I went out and commissioned covers for every issue out of my own pocket. Meanwhile, my emails about #1's release go unanswered and I ask my local comic shop if I'm in previews yet. And they say, yeah here's A Haunting on Mars right here and show me the cover A and cover B variants. They hired their homie to do the main cover and pushed Ruairi Coleman's (the co-creator) to B variant. I was immediately upset since the co-creator should have the main cover–not to mention that Hugo's cover (while very cool) is too graphically gorey to be shelved at some shops. I brought these concerns up to Scout. 1) that I hadn't even known about this cover until it was in previews and 2) that it's the main cover instead of the co-creators and they just said well you signed this contract that says we get to pick your covers and we know best, and look you've got over 2k orders so we were right. So outside of a spot in Previews and their botched press release, there was zero marketing for my book outside of what Ruairi and I did."

Now I talked to Scout, and as well as the other responses above, they wanted to state that Zack did know that Hugo was going to be doing the cover in question, and shared e-mails that showed he gave direction to that end. Zack clarified to me that "I did not approve anyone as a main cover. I sent over some instructions and ideas on directions for a variant… I do love Hugo's work and that cover but that's a creative decision to make it the main cover. Especially considering I'd commissioned five other variants. And trust me, I found out about the cover when I asked my LCS if I was in their system to pre-order"

Zach continued, "So for the issue 2's Lunar and Diamond preview text they used a different book Howie the Hell Hound's issue 2 ad text. When I brought this up to them and asked them to fix it, they blamed Lunar. Then the day before release I see that on my Comics Geek's app the release has been pushed back by a month. They didn't have the decency to let me know that they'd delayed the book by a month and when I inquired, they gave no reason as to its delay. Then the book gets delayed again and again. And when I ask, they make vague mentions of investors and NDAs, etc."

"A Haunting on Mars sold around 2500 copies. They sent me a royalty statement of $48. I still have not received a check or anything. How that breaks down is: they ordered 5500 of my books. An insanely large print run considering the order numbers of #1. And in the contract they make it to where you have to earn back your print run on sales before they split revenue with you (still keep in mind they've paid nothing for the art or labor that went into this book). My book made back its entire comically large print run order, and now I'm left with a statement for $48. I'd just like Scout to either release our books–trade paper backs, issues or whatever. Or if they can't due to funding issues, then they need to stop holding our creations hostage and let us take our books somewhere else. These comics are our hopes and dreams and Scout's bloated corpse of a publishing company is just sitting on them."

Blood Run, Forever Maps & Beyond The Beyond

But amongst all this (and more to come) there were dissenting voices. Evan K Pozios of Blood Run at Scout, who told me, "I noticed the unfortunate Twitter drama today involving Scout. For what it's worth, I could not think of a more hard-working, professional, and transparent publisher than Scout Comics. Their EIC is a convention warrior with a heart of gold, promoting other creators' works at every opportunity. Their CEO personally welcomed me to the fold, even though I only signed a ONE SHOT with them. They think out of the box in terms of maximizing creator revenue and exposure, while signing IPs to well-respected studio deals. I could not be more proud to be associated with Scout Comics, now, and in the future."

Michael Lagacé also posted "I'm still happy that The Forever Maps is with @ScoutComics. They said yes when a bunch of publishers didn't, and I wouldn't have been able to get it out to market at the same level on my own.

And Christian Tropeano, writer of Beyond The Beyond at Scout shared a letter he had sent to his editor as a result of the other accounts.

"Hey Andrea, Just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate everything you and Scout have done for me as a creator. I truly enjoyed editing my comic with you and cherish the invaluable insight you provided. If it wasn't for Scout I would have no writing career. No other publisher gave me a chance. My dreams would've been dead years ago. Without Scout, I wouldn't have had my work in printed in high-quality color, and sold in shops across the country. I also wouldn't have had my work sold at conventions far from home, or learned how to pitch my work to a live stream audience. Scout has provided a voice to people who otherwise would have none. First-time creators are having their graphic novels distributed through Simon and Schuster. It's an incredibly lucky position to be in. Running a small business is tough, let alone in the shrinking comics industry. really believe we can move past this bump on the road. Here's hoping that we can all hangout at a convention soon!"

Back To All The Devils From Here

And after the Scout Comics initial statement, Jarred Luján who had kicked this all off quote tweeted rather than replied "How was it an internal miscommunication when your CEO, COO, Publisher, and President were all in the same email chain across six months? I respect that Scout is taking "responsibility" despite not apologizing for how disrespectful and unprofessional they've been to us, or how often they ignored our emails, or how we are on contact #6 now in a course of one year, but I don't need to be pissed on and told its rain. Out of respect for Lesa and our negotiations, I will not delve further into this statement and how much I detest it. But anyone who thinks I can't prove every word I've said is wrong."

Kiyarn Taghan wrote "Where was this accountability when we repeatedly asked for details and figures and were instead greeted with anger. Denied a contract termination unless we paid 75k for the huge overprint we didn't ask for. This is a company full of grifters, don't believe a word of this at all." and he told Bleeding Cool, "I went to see the comments on the Facebook page and saw that me, Christian and others have been blocked from the page, so they're actively blocking creators too. Not a fantastic look."

Christian DiBari of Provenance Of Madness, Rad Wraith and Electric Black added "Wow, so brave – I've got an idea, instead of this poor excuse for communicating, how about you guys return our rights back to the books WE created instead of holding them hostage?!"

Adam Barnhardt wrote "I've officially requested the rights back to both SH*TSHOW and Keepers of the Cosmos."

Louis Southard wrote "I've inquired to terminate my contract for MIDNIGHT WESTERN THEATRE." He also posted a hypothetical account of what might have gone down., including the paragraph, "Imagine having your book scheduled for one week, and then having it delayed for weeks or months or on indefinite hiatus. The worst part is that you'd be lucky if they even told you when it would be released. They certainly won't tell you if it's delayed. In some cases, the hypothetical Ranger will sporadically release the book ahead of time on their webstore. They claim it's their right. So, what of the comic book stores purchasing their books? Where is the incentive to keep supporting this publisher if the publisher is their direct competitor for new books that don't even show up when they're supposed to."

While 5 Meats Comics of Mashbone & Grifty at Scout Comics replied "Scout Comics' post makes @jarredlujan 's problem sound like an isolated incident but its business as usual. We got nothing but broken promises followed by radio silence from Scout AND their imprint."

So, a lot of claims from a lot of angry and frustrated people. Scout Comics has made some firm commitments to tackle these issues, and Bleeding Cool intends to follow this up with these named creators, those who remain anonymous, and those who have not yet come forward.

I had also been told that some creators have been informed that Scout Comics is expecting a major investment to announce imminently, which might help sort out any current financial pressures. This appears to be the Element Media Global announcement, but it does seem that communication issues are even more important right now. I thank both the comic creators named and unnamed, and the executives of Scout Comics, for speaking so candidly as they felt they were able, with me.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!